RocRoots: David Hochstein, violin virtuoso, is born on Feb. 16

David Hochstein's musical talent took him from his immigrant neighborhood on Joseph Avenue to being featured at the age of 22 as a violin soloist at Carnegie Hall.

But Hochstein's skyrocketing career was cut short by the horrors of war. With Europe engulfed by World War I, Hochstein enlisted in the U.S. Army and volunteered for combat.

Hochstein was killed at the age of 26 in the Battle of Argonne Forest less than a month before the armistice put a stop to the war that was supposed to end all wars.

The anniversary of his birthday -- Hochstein was born on Feb. 16, 1892 -- provides an opportunity to remember Hochstein's legacy.

He was such an inspiration that a music school in Rochester -- the Hochstein School of Music & Dance -- was established in his memory.

Emily Sibley Watson, who was the daughter of Western Union Telegraph founder Hiram Sibley, led the drive to open the school. She had become Hochstein's patron after hearing the sounds of his music while he was a student at East High School.

"Mrs. Watson, who lived at 11 Prince Street, heard some incredibly lovely violin music coming from an open window," wrote Grace N. Kraut in her 1980 biography, An Unfinished Symphony: The Story of David Hochstein.

As Hochstein's reputation grew, requests for public performances began to come in.

"One of his earlier concerts, besides those he performed with his school orchestra, took place in 1907 when he played at a fundraising benefit in Rochester's Germania Hall for the local branch of the Workman's Circle," Kraut noted.

Hochstein's father, Jacob, who was a Russian immigrant, bought his son a violin at the age of 5 and, according to Kraut, realized that the child had a deep understanding of music when he'd ask such questions as, "Can we change the sharp to a natural, Papa? It will sound better."

Training abroad

With Watson's financial help, Hochstein went abroad after graduating from East High to study with two of the masters of violin in Vienna, Austria, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

George Eastman, who was a friend of Watson's, was among the many taken in by Hochstein's talent. He bought two violins for Hochstein to use -- including a 1715 Stradivarius.

In 1914, at the age of 22, Hochestein returned to Rochester and joined the faculty of the D.K.G. Institute of Musical Art, forerunner of the Eastman School of Music.

A year later came Hochstein's Carnegie Hall performance, which put him center stage in the world of music.

"The New York Times music critic was so effusive in his praise of the young violinist that George Eastman wrote to David on January 30th expressing his personal pleasure at Hochstein's success," said Kraut.

Hochstein, according to the Hochstein school's history of him, also performed in Boston, Chicago and elsewhere in the United States as well as in such European cities as London, Berlin and Dresden -- all to rave reviews.

Perils of war

But the landscape of Europe soon became ravaged by war

The assassination in June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand during his visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo triggered the First World War a month later, with alliances dragging in many European countries in the fray.

President Woodrow Wilson, who initially resisted entry into the conflict, eventually entered in 1917, with Congress declaring war that April.

Hochstein, wrote Kraut, "agonized over how he should handle the Selective Service Act."

He had obtained an exemption from the draft because with the death of his father, his income was his mother's major source of support.

"When he received official news of his exemption, David did not experience the longed-for sense of relief," Kraut noted.

Instead, Hochstein felt he'd be seen as a quitter. He returned to the draft board and said he had made financial arrangements for his mother --and in October 1917 enlisted in the Army.

Hochstein's aunt, Emma Goldman, was not happy about Hochstein's decision.

Goldman, who immigrated to Rochester in 1885 but moved to New York City as she became involved in anarchist causes, was dead set against U.S. entry into the war. She went to prison for opposing the draft and was later deported.

In Goldman's autobiography, Living My Life, she told of visiting sister Helena, David's mother, after Hochstein decided to enlist.

"I found David also there, and I longed to talk to him," wrote Goldman.

But she went on to say: "I had proclaimed that the choice of military service must be left to the conscience of every man. How could I attempt to impose my views on David, even if I could hope to persuade him, which I did not?"

Dies in combat

Hochstein was assigned to the 306th Infantry Division at Yaphank, Long Island. But it was during his basic training that the Stradivarius that Eastman gave Hochstein to use hit hard times.

In March 1918, an article appeared in The New York Times that wasted no time in telling readers what happened.

"David Hochstein, violin virtuoso and a sergeant in the headquarters company of the 306th Infantry is at his home in Rochester mourning the destruction of his Stradivarius violin, valued at $25,000."

What happened, reported the Times, was that Hochstein and 13 other soldiers crowded into a small auto bus, causing the front wheels of the vehicle to collapse, smashing to bits the violin.

Eastman, according to Kraut, turned the badly damaged instrument over to an expert craftsman who completely restored it.

A few weeks after he was deployed to France in 1918, Hochstein wrote his mother saying that he "cannot submit to hiding behind my violin any longer," so he transferred to a combat unit.

On Oct. 15, 1918, Hochstein was killed as he led a combat unit in the Battle of Argonne Forest.

His body was never found, but a plaque in his memory was placed on the tombstone of his parents in Mt. Hope Cemetery.